Children's Mental Health Week
In February 2020 we celebrated National Children's Mental Health Week. Set up by children’s mental health charity Place2Be, the week shined a spotlight on the importance of children and young people’s mental health. This year’s theme was Find your Brave. Here at Earlham we promoted positive mental health in many different ways - through movement, music, poetry and a Find Your Brave assembly and flash mob!
Movement for your mind
Research shows that moving our bodies and physical activity helps our brains to be more active, and improves our wellbeing - we feel better if we are active! Pupils enjoyed lots of movement this week - yoga, fun sports activities, a fitness course, and we were helped out by students from Forest Gate Community College who put us through our paces! We also ran Bikeability courses during the week for pupils keen to improve their cycling skills. It was an active week!
Take a look at the photos and our Movement for your mind video of all the fun activities we did.
Tune into mental health
We explored the ways in which music can capture, reflect and change our feelings and moods. As part of our music curriculum we listened to different styles of music and discussed the feelings that these pieces reflected, and then composed and performed our own mood music.
You can hear the children talk about how music helps their wellbeing, and what they learnt, in this video.
Find your brave
Life is all about taking small brave steps every day. Bravery could be about sharing worries and asking for help when you need it, trying something new or making the right choices. Our wonderful Kindness Crew and Headstart Champions delivered a school assembly where they gave suggestions to their peers about things they can do to ask for help and sharing worries. Then they tried something new - and led Earlham's first flash mob! Watch this video made by children of people in our school talking about the bravest thing they have ever done - we have some awesomely courageous Earlhamites!
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Poetry and wellbeing
Expressing how we feel takes many forms, and in children's mental health week the whole school explored how poetry can help us do this. Local poet Matt Abbott joined us for a school assembly and workshops, and then children studied some poems that captured many emotions and moods, and then wrote their own poems.
Tuckshop fundraiser
On Tuesday 11th February, Beech class held a mini tuckshop as part of their PSHE lesson. The aim was to raise awareness and funds for a charity by organising a manageable and practical event in a short space of time. As it was children's mental health week, the children donated their profit to the mental health charity Place2Be.
The class split into five groups, created a team name (Business Inc, Mental Health Helpers, Team T.U.R.R.Y.A.M.A, Midnight Stars and Place2B) brainstormed event ideas, prepared their resources, raised awareness and held their tuckshop during breaktime. The groups collectively raised £138.80 in the space of thirty minutes.
Well done Beech class!
